Origins
As far back as I can remember, I've been drawn to stories — hearing them, telling them, understanding how they shape the way we see the world. Growing up in San Diego, my parents would challenge my sister and me with a variety of philosophical questions over dinner, often turning meals into discussions about ethics, meaning, and how to live a good life. One question stuck with me:
"Would you rather spend your life being wealthy, happy, or good?"
After some debate, the “correct” answer became clear. We should, above all else, be good.
That idea has been the through-line of my career, even when I didn't realize it.
These discussions were often followed by board or card games, or a movie.
Hollywood, Briefly
I spent my twenties trying to make it in film and television. I started cutting my teeth on student films out of USC and UCLA, then landed my first real job as an assistant editor on Trace Evidence: The Casefiles of Dr. Henry Lee for CourtTV, while the show itself was pretty bad, it led to additional opportunities, including a near-miss with a future Oscar winner. From there it was the usual LA grind — low-budget movies, commercials, music videos, and two seasons on the casting team for America's Next Top Model.
Eventually, I realized that Hollywood and I would have to part ways, at least temporarily. I loved the craft of visual storytelling, but I didn't love the industry. I wanted to tell stories that mattered — stories about people and problems the world wasn't paying attention to.
After a year spent in San Diego, supporting my mom after my father’s passing and building up a small nest-egg playing poker, I had the opportunity to collaborate with a first-time director on a documentary about the Buffalo River Dene Nation in northern Canada.
It was a story about Indigenous land rights, broken treaties, and environmental destruction. The Canadian government had annexed Dene land for a strategic missile range, but instead of using the territory for national defense, it leased it to timber and mining companies that poisoned the soil and water. Adelard Blackman, the Nation's emissary to the United Nations, was trying to bring the case before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and acted as source, subject, and guide during our shoot days in Canada. I spent time with the community, documented their story, and learned more about justice and injustice than any classroom could teach.
At that point, I figured I understood film production, but had a lot to learn about journalism, so I applied to NYU’s broadcast journalism program, and packed my bags for New York.
Adventures in Journalism
J-school started in the fall of 2006, and I’d earned a graduate assistant position that allowed me to mentor my classmates and undergraduates on the filmmaking parts of the program. Underground games in New York, where the rake was steep but the characters were worth it.
Grad school was a blur of shooting, writing, and editing. I worked as a graduate assistant, did a stint at the New York Post as a one-man-band reporter (we parted ways over editorial ethics), and edited entertainment stories for global distribution at Thomson Reuters. I freelanced for various outlets and kept playing poker on the side.
In 2007, I played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. While I didn’t last long in the tournament - sleep deprivation, constant table-moves, and pocket aces busted by kings saw to that - however, I still made enough profit on that trip to pay for grad school. I'm not quite sure what that says about me, except maybe that I've always been comfortable with calculated risk when the expected value is right.
But documentary work in the mid-2000s wasn't what it is today. The incredible success of Supersize Me turned out to be a fluke, and there was no Netflix buying up every compelling story pitched to them. I found myself grinding through daily news assignments that felt far removed from the impact I wanted to have. I was reporting on problems. I wanted to be part of solving them.
The Bet That Changed Everything
In 2009, I was fed up with journalism. I'd ditched most of my belongings and flown one-way to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker with my uncles—buying time while I figured out what came next.
When I stepped off the plane in Vegas, I got an email inviting me to interview for an internship role with (then) StayClassy Productions - I’d applied a month earlier to a craigslist ad sent to me by my sister. The next morning, The Guardian Newspaper reached out about a North American producer role.
I flew back and forth between San Diego and D.C., interviewing for both. And then I made the decision that still surprises people: I took the unpaid internship.
People ask how I found the courage (stupidity?) to turn down The Guardian for a startup no one had heard of. But to me, it was simple math. I didn't have dependents. I had enough runway to take a risk. The Guardian was a very good job in an industry I no longer enjoyed. StayClassy was a high-upside bet in a field I didn't fully understand, working on something that felt like it could matter. I wanted to make news instead of report on it. I wanted to move the needle on social issues, not just describe them. I also had outs - a friend of mine, active in democratic politics, suggested I take the startup role, and if it didn’t work out, they’d try and help me find something issues-focused in D.C.
From an Expected Value perspective, it was the only choice that made sense.
Our little startup eventually grew up and became Classy.org, eventually facilitating more than $5 Billion in donations across thousands of nonprofit organizations, en route to an acquisition by GoFundMe. I was on that team for nearly a decade, building strategic partnerships, doing sales, marketing, and customer support, and representing our company in webinars and at conferences. We grew from a handful of people in a basement to a company that shaped how the social sector thinks about fundraising.
What I'm Doing Now
These days, I'm focused on three things:
Altruous is my attempt to fix what's broken in philanthropy. Too much money flows to organizations with good marketing instead of good outcomes. Reliable information is scarce. Perverse incentives are everywhere. Altruous helps funders cut through the noise — discover high-impact programs, build smarter portfolios, and direct resources where they'll actually make a difference.
Cause & Purpose is a podcast about the people working on the front lines of social change. I've had conversations with nonprofit founders, philanthropists, researchers, and organizers—exploring what drives them, what they've learned, and what the rest of us can take from their work.
Feed Me Cake is a puzzle-platform game inspired by the old-but-not-forgotten Lemmings. It’s my way of learning to vibe-code using AI tools, and preparation for bigger, more personal, games I’d like to create in the future. I’ve been interested in nonlinear storytelling for years, and technology is finally at a point where non-technical people can start producing such things on their own.
These projects sit at the intersection of stories, impact, and finely crafted experiences — which, looking back, is where I've always wanted to be.
The Other Stuff
I still consult, advise, and serve as a board member across a variety of nonprofits and social enterprises.
This year will mark my 8th trip to Burning Man. It’s been a wild ride and a platform for incredible growth. For the last few years, I've dedicated my time there to building an expansion to the infamous Golden Guy Alley, and run a bar there called The Missing Piece. It’s an opportunity to lead a team of people trying to create amazing experiences for others, and experiment in creating intentional, joyful spaces of my own, that inspire visitors and build deep human connections.
I’m an accidental dog-dad to a sweet little shepherd mix named Molly. I love cooking, mixing cocktails, hiking, travel, and generally getting outside whenever I can. I'm a builder by nature—of partnerships, of communities, of things that bring people together around something that matters.
If anything here resonates, I'd love to hear from you.
— Mike